The newest arm of the Rogers media empire will give sports fans something they haven’t seen before, says the new editor-in-chief.

While he has effectively been working the gig for a few months now, last week Steve Maich was officially announced as the editor-in-chief and publisher of Sportsnet magazine, the new bi-weekly, general interest sports publication that’s scheduled to hit the stands in late September.

Talking to Maich — an award-winning journalist who most recently held the reins at Canadian Business — as he ramps up production with a new staff, I got to ask the thing that most industry folks have been wondering since the magazine was announced: Who do they plan to copy? Is this going to be a Canadian Sports Illustrated? Or as an arm of a broadcast network, is it going to be more like ESPN?

“It depends on if you’re talking from a business model or a content model perspective. From the business side, yes, I think we have a lot in common with ESPN, because of how each distinct platform — TV, radio, online and print — can feed and help one another,” he said.

“As far as the content goes, the short answer is no one. It is natural for people to say, ‘So is this going to be a Sports Illustrated for Canada, or more like a Maclean’s of sports?’ I keep on saying, ‘Neither.’

“We’re very focused and think we have a great opportunity to do something unlike anything that anyone has seen in this market. We’re really inspired by a lot of the European sports magazines, which are incredibly visual and beautiful to look at, but are also written and edited with this passion that really kind of matches the passion of sports fans. That’s not really the sports journalism tradition in North America, and I think it’s an opportunity for us to distinguish our voice from what is out there.”

Maich made it very clear that the magazine will be its own entity, and will not simply be a marketing extension of the other Rogers Sportsnet properties. Clearly an expensive endeavour, he says the company sees it as completing the pie, adding print to the rest of their sports properties, which they hope will be a tantalizing prospect to advertisers.

Adding some interesting juice to our discussion was this week’s Mashable.com case study on Sports Illustrated, basically a how-to article about publications marrying digital with print products. I asked if he had seen it; he laughed, saying I was the third person to mention or forward the article to him, but he hadn’t had a chance to read it yet.

He stressed that nothing with the magazine will happen in isolation, indicating there will be a back and forth between their distinct web home on Sportsnet.ca and that site’s existing digital staff, and that the magazine will also have an iPad app.

In that regard, one of the best things they’ve got going for them is that they are starting now. There won’t be any of the ingrained web-print divides that newspapers and magazines have been struggling with. Maich says that everyone coming in knows it’s a company with multiple brands and that working with and across them will be important.

In terms of the staff, while there are few big gets — Gare Joyce is going to be features editor, writer and blogger on hockey, and there are some hires from The Hockey News — much of the staff is made up of lesser known, younger writers, coming from various publications including the National Post, the Star and even one from Canadian Living.

Maich is also an unknown quantity in sports circles, but admits to being a sports nut. He’s also a three-time National Magazine Award winner, and a runner-up in 2008 for “The Concussion Time-Bomb”, a piece about head injuries and retired athletes.

He was first tapped as part of a small team within Rogers tasked with pitching a sports mag and creating a prototype to sell it internally — which wasn’t that hard, considering Rogers’s top execs now have sports backgrounds. While he was laying the groundwork for the magazine his boss, Ken Whyte, decided to tap him to run the new venture, which he’s very excited about.

So how does the latest foot soldier in Canada’s sports media war characterize the ongoing competition?

“I would characterize it as Sportsnet being the rising force, a brand on the move,” he says. “I don’t say that to disparage the competition, I have nothing but respect for them. But I get a real sense with the new leadership in place at Rogers Media, it has been made very clear that sports is going to be an integral part of the future of this media company and they are in the process of demonstrating to everybody exactly what that means.”

All of Canada’s sports media folks are very curious to see the new product.

Watching the Blue Jays online

This week, Rogers also announced that Blue Jays games will be available online and on cellphones to their customers. This means that for the first time, Jays fans across Canada can watch games online; the existing MLB.TV web packages blacked out Jays games in Canada, due to the team’s broadcast rights. Right now, it’s only available online through the company’s on-demand service. You have to sign up with your existing account info, and it worked well enough for me, even if it is a bit of a clunky online experience. Don’t forget, even though the access is free — or at least tied to your existing account — you will have to pay the bandwidth charges associated with viewing if you go over your cap.

Cellphone viewers should pay particular attention to that. They will also have to pay an additional $5 monthly surcharge to be able to use the mobile service. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see if I could be gouged — er, enjoy it, since my phone isn’t currently with Rogers. Anybody out there have the pleasure — or pain — and want to share any interesting thoughts? Email me at rmudhar@thestar.ca.

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